Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick Both Shilling for Sneakers

In an ideal world, if Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick, the young actors who play the evil but secretly good Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl, were to appear in an ad campaign, it would be for Marc Jacobs or Miu Miu or even Chanel; those are just the kind of labels we imagine Chuck and Blair promoting.

But somehow, Mr. Westwick’s and Ms. Meester’s agents don’t seem to get all of this. And instead of a high-end, Chuck-and-Blair-appropriate ad campaign, both Ms. Meester and Mr. Westwick are promoting sneakers. Sneakers!

Mr. Westwick just landed the K-Swiss campaign; here he is posing in an ad for the sneaker brand, and while, okay, he’s making the Chuck face and the rest of his outfit is relatively Chuck-worthy, the real Chuck never wears sneakers. He has a driver and doesn’t need comfortable shoes to roam across the city unlike, say, Brooklyn Boy Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), who in one of the early plot points actually walked from Williamsburg to the Upper East Side (who does that?) to win over Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively). When courting Blair, Chuck’s black limo is his white horse, so to speak, and princes generally do not wear sneakers.

And while there are all kinds of wrong with Chuck wearing K-Swiss, even more tragic is Ms. Meester shooting this ad for Reebok on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 16. Have we ever seen Blair in anything resembling tennis shoes? In the ad, the Converse-like Reebok high-tops are paired with a black high-waisted skirt, white tank top, and a gym bag. Blair Waldorf’s lips would curl into a sneer at the sight of this outfit, which is way more appropriate for Little J’s (Taylor Momsen) Libation-going ways than Blair’s afternoon tea served by her maid Dorota.

Less upsetting was Chace Crawford, who plays Nate Archibald, appearing in a Gap ad recently. Nate’s rather basic attire can easily be found at The Gap, especially since Patrick Robinson took over designing for the label. So at least it’s believable.